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Lady Cubs end season of hoops at district tournament

By:

Gerren Smith

Staff Writer

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Malvern, AR

For a hard fought year of competing on the hardwood for the 2018-19 basketball season, the hometown Malvern Lady Cubs ended their season Saturday, February 2, 2019 against the Mena Jr. Ladycats 48-12 in the junior high girls district tournament hosted at Arkadelphia High School Gymnasium.

The Lady Cubs trailed early in opening quarter play by an 11-0 spark by the Jr. Ladycats down to the 3:48 mark. Malvern's Lynasia Moore swished a key three-pointer way behind the arc at the 2:41 mark to put the Lady Cubs on the board and stop Mena's run. In the final two minutes of play in the first quarter, Mena posted seven points to increase their lead that gave the Jr. Ladycats a 18-3 advantage to end first period action.

In the second, Hannah Carey stepped up at the foul line to connect on both free-throw attempts to close Malvern's gap 18-5 at the 4:08 mark. Then Dy'Sire Jones scored a big basket from the field to cut Malvern's deficit to 18-7 down to the 2:28 mark. Defensively, the Lady Cubs held Mena scoreless for the first four minutes of the second period. The Mena Jr. Ladycats wouldn't be held without a score for long as they finished the period by scoring nine consecutive points to outscore Malvern 9-4 in the quarter. At the break, Malvern trailed Mena, 27-7.

In the third quarter, the momentum continued to progress for Mena to outscore the Lady Cubs 17-3. Malvern's only points in the period came from a huge three-pointer swished by Star Casey. At the end of three periods of play, Malvern trailed Mena 44-10.

In the final quarter of action in the fourth, Mena added two baskets with Malvern's Casey scoring the Lady Cubs lone bucket in the period. Mena went onto advance to the next round of tournament competition by defeating the Lady Cubs and their season coming to an end.

For the game, Lady Cubs' Casey led scoring with five points, Moore followed with three points, Carey and Jones each contributed two points apiece.

The Lady Cubs have battled hard all season long and provided sparks of productive play on both ends of the court. First year head coach Kristen Weigand and assistant coach Jacob Keeney were pleased by the effort and work ethic the Lady Cubs displayed throughout the season. Coach Weigand felt her team played productively, very hard and made improvement for the 2018-19 basketball season.